The base model is a 21.5" iMac that starts with a 2.5GHz i5, Radeon HD 6750M graphics card, and 500GB hard drive for $1,199, while the highest end model goes up to a 27" screen, 3.1GHz i5, Radeon HD 6970M, and 1TB hard drive for $1,999. Users can also get a custom configuration with a 3.4GHz i7 processor, up to a 2TB hard drive, or a 256GB solid state drive. And, as mentioned earlier, all the iMac models now come with the high-speed Thunderbolt I/O port and a new and improved FaceTime HD camera (which looks the same as the previous iSight camera, but offers 720p resolution with better low-light performance).

Apple and Intel first introduced Thunderbolt in February with Apple's introduction of updated MacBook Pros. The new port is designed to bring much faster I/O throughput to mobile devices and serve as a next-generation connector for peripherals (displays, storage, video and audio devices). Thunderbolt can support 10Gbps bidirectional communication—20 times faster than the theoretical limit of USB 2.0 and 12 times faster than Firewire 800.

As for looks, the new iMacs appear to have the same aesthetics as the previous models, so if you were hoping for yet another makeover, you'll have to keep waiting. Apple hopes, however, that the machine's performance gains—up to 70 percent faster, Apple says—will speak for themselves. Will you be buying?

Update: It looks like the new 27" iMac comes with two Thunderbolt ports, allowing for the connection of two external monitors simultaneously. (Apple confirmed this with several members of the press this morning.)

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui

Yes I will be buying for a work machine but I am horrified at the expense of the SSD. I would've liked a 128 GB option for 300. Upgrading yourself is such a nightmare too. Still, gonna suck it up and buy the 27" w/o SSD or the 21.5" with. Not sure which just yet.

I'll be buying one soon enough, probably along with a new 11" MacBook Air. My 08' MacBook is starting to slow a bit. Like Andy Ihnatko I try to push my products to the bitter end, and it's time for some new ones

I'd like to know why Apple sees no value in catering for people who want a headless Mac with more power than a Mini (top spec price £898) but less power than a Mac Pro (bottom spec price £2,041).

I understand the desire not to have three hundred different specifications for computers (a la Dell), but a price gap of £1143 is pretty significant not to have at least one product sitting in there.

I don't have the market research to back up any claim (lets be honest, who does here on Ars?) but I'd be surprised if there wasn't any appeal for a £1,400 headless (and expandable) machine that sat somewhere between the two.

Plus, what is going on with the Mac Mini pricing? When they were first announced they were affordable boxes that allowed people to jump from Windows to Mac without spending vast amounts of money. The cheapest unit is now £612 - hardly cheap when you consider that it was half the price when it first launched.

In general, the low-end model looks like a good deal, and the top model is pretty nice as well, but the two others are odd. Especially the top 21.5 seems overpriced for the small boosts in GPU, CPU and HD that you get.

I'd like to know why Apple sees no value in catering for people who want a headless Mac with more power than a Mini (top spec price £898) but less power than a Mac Pro (bottom spec price £2,041).

I think those people would be well served with a MacBook Pro. Really, there isn't much performance difference between a well-equipped MBP and iMac. You do pay for the display so it isn't 'headless' but you can close the lid!

Anita Man wrote:

Yes I will be buying for a work machine but I am horrified at the expense of the SSD. I would've liked a 128 GB option for 300. Upgrading yourself is such a nightmare too. Still, gonna suck it up and buy the 27" w/o SSD or the 21.5" with. Not sure which just yet.

Agree wholeheartedly. I hate the Apple tax when it comes to internal hardware. $200 for +2GB of RAM? $500 to go from a 1TB plate to a 256GB SSD? Good grief

No, Ars, I won't be buying. I'm only interested in a new mobo with both USB 3 and Lightpeak.

Pssst, Thunderbolt is lightpeak.

Psst, Thunderbolt is also *not* USB3, which this iMac lacks.

Psst, there are adapters in the works to have USB3 on the Thunderbolt chain from 3rd parties. Same with Firewire and eSATA.

Not that USB3 is setting the world ablaze with it's adoption.

Like standard equipment on $500 Dell Vostro Laptops?

I find it hard to believe that Thunderbolt/Lightpeak will fair any better than Firewire. Over and over again in the history of the PC cheaper/easier wins over faster/more complex. Given USB3s backwards compatibility and strong consumer recognition (bigger number! Faster!) it makes sense for OEMs to bundle and claim it as a feature.

FWIW, my beef is that you can buy a $1200 new PC and not get USB3 but get an interface like Thunderbolt. Thank goodness it has Firewire800 though...

I think those people would be well served with a MacBook Pro. Really, there isn't much performance difference between a well-equipped MBP and iMac. You do pay for the display so it isn't 'headless' but you can close the lid!

Agree wholeheartedly. I hate the Apple tax when it comes to internal hardware. $200 for +2GB of RAM? $500 to go from a 1TB plate to a 256GB SSD? Good grief

Well, there is a price difference, for the cost of an entry level 15" MBP you can get a 27" iMac with all the fixings. 13" MBPs dont count, as they do have wimpy video card offerings (I regret my 13" MBP).

As for the Apple Tax, easy to avoid on the MBP, upgrading your ram or HD is as simple as undoing a bunch of screws --however I think the HD now has the newest tri-hex thing head.

iMac, ram is easy, HD can't do without removing the screen and risking shit going bad in a bad bad way. (Personally I'd love to try a Hybrid drive in an iMac).

All iMacs since the switch to the uprights have had mobility GPUs, without exception (GeForce 7200/7300, Mobility Radeon 2600, Mobility Radeon 4850, the 8xxxM GeForce). This is just the first time that they've come out and admitted it instead of waiting for it to be confirmed via the cards' PCI device IDs.

I find it hard to believe that Thunderbolt/Lightpeak will fair any better than Firewire. Over and over again in the history of the PC cheaper/easier wins over faster/more complex. Given USB3s backwards compatibility and strong consumer recognition (bigger number! Faster!) it makes sense for OEMs to bundle and claim it as a feature.

FWIW, my beef is that you can buy a $1200 new PC and not get USB3 but get an interface like Thunderbolt. Thank goodness it has Firewire800 though...

It stands a decent chance of faring better than firewire because it can be *used as USB3*.

I work in retail in a place where jo shmo buys their computers - they are certainly not aware of USB3 and even if they are they don't need the speed. (The speed argument applies to Thuderbolt of course.)

No, Ars, I won't be buying. I'm only interested in a new mobo with both USB 3 and Lightpeak.

Go ahead and keep waiting for USB3—Intel still doesn't support it in its chipsets. The company keeps saying it will sometime this year or next year, though. Having used a USB3 hard drive, I think you're mostly biding your time for no useful gain.

In general, the low-end model looks like a good deal, and the top model is pretty nice as well, but the two others are odd. Especially the top 21.5 seems overpriced for the small boosts in GPU, CPU and HD that you get.

Well, there is a price difference, for the cost of an entry level 15" MBP you can get a 27" iMac with all the fixings. 13" MBPs dont count, as they do have wimpy video card offerings (I regret my 13" MBP).

As for the Apple Tax, easy to avoid on the MBP, upgrading your ram or HD is as simple as undoing a bunch of screws --however I think the HD now has the newest tri-hex thing head.

iMac, ram is easy, HD can't do without removing the screen and risking shit going bad in a bad bad way. (Personally I'd love to try a Hybrid drive in an iMac).

Yeah, but the post I was responding to was someone wishing for a mid-range option without a display. He was pointing out the gap between low-end Mac Mini and top-tier Mac Pro. Paying for that gorgeous 27" iMac display isn't attractive for someone who, for whatever reason, doesn't want a display. Maybe he could find a 27" Sandy Bridge iMac with working internals but a broken screen on eBay in a few months?

And I would never personally pay for RAM where I could avoid it. I have a 13" MBAir so I did have to cough up for the 4GB RAM option. What chaps my ass is the fact that Apple knows it's a pain to mess with the iMac's HD and 95% of people couldn't add a stick of RAM to their computer if their life depended on it. So goes the Apple tax!

USB3 and INTEL's Lightpeak please - next gen PCs will have these in 2 months.Oh and will cost 3/4 of a mac.

MACS are shiny on the outside and a POS on the inside. Wanna see, run a iops check on their POS SSD they sell with their laptop - do they actually search and seek out the cheapest SSD and charge the most for it? Answer: YES THEY DO!

Having used a USB3 hard drive, I think you're mostly biding your time for no useful gain.

Care to turn this into a useful statement?

What exactly is your claim? That a USB3 drive is NO faster than the 37MB/s or so that one can get from a USB2 drive? That it is no cheaper than an FW8 drive?That we should all be using eSATA drives on our (non-existent) Mac eSATA ports?That we should be installing multiple internal drives in our iMacs?

MACS are shiny on the outside and a POS on the inside. Wanna see, run a iops check on their POS SSD they sell with their laptop - do they actually search and seek out the cheapest SSD and charge the most for it? Answer: YES THEY DO!

Instead of jabbering like an idiot, go look at the SSD benchmarks for the MBAir. They are very competitive. Apple isn't for you if you want every last ounce of performance for cheap.

USB3 and INTEL's Lightpeak please - next gen PCs will have these in 2 months.Oh and will cost 3/4 of a mac.

MACS are shiny on the outside and a POS on the inside. Wanna see, run a iops check on their POS SSD they sell with their laptop - do they actually search and seek out the cheapest SSD and charge the most for it? Answer: YES THEY DO!

This is a STUPID STUPID statement reflecting a VAST ignorance of this market.In particular the REAL WORLD problem with current SSDs is that their PEAK power consumption is horribly high and gets higher as they age. The practical effect is that in many situations the drive appears to work OK, but mysteriously the system hangs, when a collection of back-to-back writes exceeds the power budget. And, as I said, the problem is usually delayed until months, perhaps even a year or more, after the device is bought and installed.

Apple have plenty of flaws, and I'd have no problem with your criticizing their HDs, but in the case of SSDs they are dealing with a really crappy set of vendors who simply cannot get their act together regarding peak power. It would not surprise if Apple are paying more to get devices with a guaranteed power profile; and even if they are not, the sad fact is that you, the customer, are paying for the Apple brand and some sort of assurance that the SSD works the way it is meant to; and you have to pay that price because the "assurance" provided by Kingston, or OCZ, or anyone else, isn't worth a damn.

I find it hard to believe that Thunderbolt/Lightpeak will fair any better than Firewire. Over and over again in the history of the PC cheaper/easier wins over faster/more complex. Given USB3s backwards compatibility and strong consumer recognition (bigger number! Faster!) it makes sense for OEMs to bundle and claim it as a feature.

We'll see. And USB3 isn't totally backwards compatible. I have peripherals that do not work with the USB 3 ports on my laptop, but work on teh USB 2 ports.

No matte antiglare screens on the new iMacs. If you need matte screens, there's something you can do - add your voice to 1,340+ petitions at http://macmatte.wordpress.com Unlike personal emails to Apple - which Apple just ignore, asserting everyone loves glossy screens - make it count by adding to the online petition where your voice will remain visible on the net until Apple listens. Remember, adding your comment to transient news articles on the net is fine, but those articles go out of date in a few weeks, and also there is no long-term accumulation and consolidation of numbers, like there is at a petition site.